“My name is Walter Hartwell White. I live at 308 Negra Arroyo Lane, Albuquerque, New Mexico. 87104. To all law enforcement entities, this is not an admission of guilt. I am speaking to the AMC viewers now. There are… there are going to be some things, things that you’ll come to learn about me in the next five seasons. I just want you to know that, no matter how it may look, I only had you in my heart. Goodbye.”

Okay, so maybe that’s not exactly what Walt said in the opening moments of the first episode of “Breaking Bad,” but as I sat down to write this, my review of the last episode of “Breaking Bad,” the paraphrasing seemed like as apropos a way to kick things off as any.

I’ll be honest: as much as I wanted to just let the events of the series finale wash over me and accept whatever Vince Gilligan wanted to give me, it was impossible to walk into the proceedings without feeling like a kid at Christmas, giggling and wondering, “What am I gonna get?” We knew the big-ass gun in Walt’s trunk and the ricin he’d retrieved from his house were both going to come into play, but we didn’t know how. Well, not really, anyway. The two big theories I kept hearing about the ricin were that he was going to slip it into Lydia’s tea or drink it himself, but I’d also heard convincing dismissals of both theories, so I really didn’t have any clue how things would play out. Besides, I’ve said more times than I can count that this is a series that never fails to zig when you think it’s going to zag, so there’s just no point in trying to guess. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get really, really excited about the prospect of finding out.

The opening sequence with Walt still trying to slip out of the bar’s parking lot was inspired, since most viewers – including myself – had almost certainly presumed that we’d pick up with him well on his way back to ABQ, if not actually in the middle of his birthday breakfast. Luck may not have started out on his side at first, but in short order, between the still-iced car keeping him hidden from view and the accidental dislodging of the car’s keys from above the sun visor, things quickly turned into a case of Everything’s Coming Up Walter!

Indeed, things continue to work out well for Walt’s plan of action, starting with an apparently uneventful cross-country drive – gotta love New Hampshire’s state slogan: “Live Free or Die” – and a hastily conceived idea to pose as a New York Times reporter to find out where Elliott and Gretchen Schwartz are living these days and pay them a visit. Watching him skulk in the shadows and slip into their home was creepy enough to begin with, but his whole interaction with the Schwartzes was bad on the blood pressure, starting with the way he casually examined their photos while waiting for them to stumble onto him and going all the way through his explanation about why the laser sights had suddenly appeared on their chests. We’ll never know if his closing threat was enough to secure that they’d do his bidding and actually give his money to his family as he requested / demanded, but I like to think that they will, and the fact that it’s coming from them makes the windfall morally acceptable…or at least moreso than it would’ve been coming from Walt, anyway. Either way, it was worth it just to see how much enjoyment Walt was getting out of scaring the living shit out of them. “Curtains.” Classic.

Quick sidebar: I hadn’t even begun to hope that we’d ever see Badger and Skinny Pete again, so it was awesome to see that they were the ones who’d been shining the laser points onto the Schwartzes. Their brief appearance was a nice respite from the tension of the episode, particularly the humor derived from their annoyance that Jesse was in town and cooking up quality meth but hadn’t given his brothers a hookup, yo. I’ve always said that the writers used those guys just enough to make their appearances awesome, never overusing them, so I’d never want to see ‘em in their own spinoff. With that said, however, I’m all for having them turn up on Saul’s spin-off.

With Walt having taken care of business with his former business partners, we get a quick cut to Jesse in the midst of…woodworking? Nah, just kidding, he’s really still makin’ meth like he’s in a fucking chain gang. He’s really just lost in a memory of better times. It’s only a brief moment, but it’s a sad one. It’s also the last we see of Jesse for awhile, but, hey, dude’s in chains, it’s not like he’s going anywhere.

For our part, we’ve got to shrug off Jesse’s situation and catch back up with Walt, who’s finally caught up in time to the flash-forwards from the beginning of Season 5, but there’s a moment that’s new to us…well, sort of, anyway. As he wanders through the White house in the wake of retrieving the ricin, he pauses to recall a scene from what seems like a lifetime ago, when Hank teased poor ol’ milquetoast Walt about how maybe he ought to go on a ride-along with him. It’s hard to tell if it’s a good memory or a bad memory for Walt, but either way he quickly walks out of his home, knowing it’s likely to be the last time he’s ever within its walls.

And so we come to Lydia. Oh, Lydia. Say, have you met Lydia? If you have, then you know she’s painfully prone to repetitive behavior, and it’s something that Walt isn’t afraid to take advantage of. That’s right, if you bet on Walt slipping the ricin into her tea by taking advantage of her tendency to use Stevia, then, congratulations, she’s dead. Hope you’re happy! Walt’s performance was pretty convincing, and so was Lydia’s, to be fair, but she never had a chance against a master of lies like Heisenberg. With that, Walt’s off to the desert, where he’s setting up a remote control system for his spiffy new firearm, revealing only that whatever he’s up to is clearly going to be something elaborate.

Time to visit Skyler, who gets a phone call from Marie, who’s requesting a truce in order to reveal the latest news about Walt. Skyler is kind enough to pick up and listen to her sister natter on about how Walt’s turned up in ABQ but that everything’s gonna be just fine, but as soon as Skyler thanks her and gets off the line, we realize that, in fact, Walt’s been there the whole time. Their conversation is understandably stilted at first, but they soon slip into the same back-and-forth they’ve had in the past, but with one key difference: Walt’s finally stopped telling lies. Granted, he may be picking his phrases carefully on occasion, such as when she asks if he’s going to the police and he replies, “They’ll be coming to me,” but he’s not lying. Not anymore.

Walt assures her that the guys who came to see her and Holly won’t be bothering her anymore after tonight, then he gives her the lottery ticket with the GPS coordinates and tells her they can find Hank and Gomez’s bodies there. Before leaving, though, he decides that he has to offer up the greatest truth of all: in the end, the things he did weren’t for his family. He finally admits, “I did it for me. I liked it. I was good at it. I was alive.” And although it’s probably far too late for Skyler to ever fully forgive Walt, there’s a look in her eyes that reveals that, if nothing else, she’s finally gotten a final glimpse of the man she married. It’s never going to fix everything he’s done, but it’s the best goodbye she’s going to get, so she takes it, offering him a final olive branch of letting him say goodbye to his daughter. Before he gets in his car to go, he takes long enough to watch his son get off the bus, walk to his house, step inside, and close the door. There’s no need from him to say goodbye – he knows he’s dead to his son now –but at least he’s able to get one last glimpse of him before he goes.

And so we reach the grand conclusion, which begins with Walt driving up to the gate of Uncle Jack’s compound, where he promptly picks up a co-pilot who tells him where to drive. When he ignored the guy’s instructions on where to park in favor of his own choice of spot, I knew it was a telling choice of location, and seeing the remote control on his keychain confirmed it. Naturally, I felt my stomach lurch when his keys were taken away from him, wondering if this was going to be one of those zig-when-you-think-it’s-gonna-zag moments. Things quickly go tits up for Walt when Jack says he’s got no interest in moving forward with any future collaboration and orders one of his boys to kill him, but Walt immediately plays the “you owe me” card, reminding Jack that he’d promised to kill Jesse but had instead made him his partner. This was a classic example of Walt thinking on his feet to save his ass, but the end result of his comments made me twitch briefly, as it seemed a little too convenient for Jack to suddenly say, “You think we’re partners? In that case, before I kill you, I’ll show you we aren’t…and then I’ll kill you!” Then again, if he hadn’t said that, then Jesse never would’ve been brought inside. I’m just saying that it’s a variable that I can’t imagine Walt ever could’ve factored into his plan, so it’s pretty fucking good luck that things played out the way they did.

My wife and I were watching the episode together tonight, and she wondered if Walt had gone in with a plan to kill Jesse, only to change his mind when he realized how badly Jesse was being treated. That seems likely to me as well. As such, I knew exactly what he was planning when he jumped Jesse. Everyone else in the room saw it as Walt trying to get in his last licks, but, no, it was actually Walt saving his former partner’s life as a final gesture of friendship…or something vaguely resembling friendship at times, anyway. And with that, Walt pressed the button on the remote control, setting off a full-fledged massacre that more or less took out everyone but Walt, Jesse, and – wouldn’t you know it? – Todd. But that’s okay, because it finally set up the showdown everyone had been waiting for, giving Jesse a chance to literally choke the life out of the man who killed Andrea. Plus, Walt got to put a bullet in Jack’s head. Did you think he was going to spare him just to get the rest of his money back? No way. Walt knew his life was over, his family didn’t want any more of his money, and, besides, he’d already been willing to give it all away to spare Hank’s life. He might not have been able to save Hank, but at least he was able to avenge him.

But what of Walt and Jesse? Figuring he’s giving Jesse what he wants and getting a quick death in the process, Walt throws Jesse the gun, but Jesse refuses to shoot Walt unless Walt says that it’s what he wants…and when he realizes that Walt’s already been hit, he just throws caution to the wind, says, “Then do it yourself,” and walks away. As he’s leaving, though, Todd’s phone rings…and the ringtone is “Lydia the Tattooed Lady.” (Personally, I thought it was preposterous that Todd would be familiar with the song, but the rationale seems to be that he was obsessed enough with Lydia that he would’ve Googled her name to find a song to use as her ringtone. I am old and had not considered this as a possibility. I guess I’ll buy that.) It may have been a little anticlimactic for us to hear him tell Lydia how he’d poisoned her, but it was still darkly entertaining nonetheless. And with that taken care of, Walt steps outside, he and Jesse exchange final looks and expressions that say more than you could ever summarize in a single paragraph, and Jesse drives away, blowing through the gate, laughing his blessed head off, free at last. Will his first stop be to find Brock and make sure he’s safe? You’d like to think so.

And as Jesse drives away, Walt finally realizes what Jesse had already noticed: he’s been shot. Jesse might not have been willing to finish the job the cancer started five seasons ago, but it doesn’t matter anymore. Offering up a few final coughs, Walt wanders into the meth lab and, with Badfinger’s “Baby Blue” playing in the background, looks at what he’s wrought, touches the vat and leaves a bloody print behind (a none-too-subtle reference to all the blood on his hands, perhaps?), and succumbs to death at last, gone before the cops can take him away. As Vince Gilligan has been promising us, Walt went out on his own terms, and viewers got, if not necessarily a happy ending, the happiest possible conclusion that could’ve been delivered at this point: Walt found a way to give his wife and children money, helped Marie get closure by providing the location of Hank’s body, and, despite everything, still managed to set Jesse free to live his life. Plus, we got the Jesse / Todd showdown, and it ended exactly as we wanted it to.

I’m going to miss this show more than I can say, but, damn, did it go out in style.

Well, folks, I hope it’s been fun for you. I’ve never really known how many people read these reviews, but at the very least, I know that, over the course of the show’s run, I’ve convinced a lot of people to give “Breaking Bad” a chance, and that’s good enough for me. I hope you’ve enjoyed watching it as much as I have. And with that, if “Breaking Bad” thinks it’s cool to go out on a Badfinger song, then I reckon I might as well do the same.

That’s all, bitches!

]]>http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/09/30/breaking-bad-5-16-felina/feed/0Breaking Bad 5.14 – “Ozymandias”http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/09/17/breaking-bad-5-14-ozymandias/
http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/09/17/breaking-bad-5-14-ozymandias/#commentsTue, 17 Sep 2013 22:37:21 +0000http://blog.bullz-eye.com/?p=30717Vince Gilligan might be a man who avoids spoilers at all costs, but by naming this week’s episode “Ozymandias,” he tipped his hand at least a little bit…if, that is, you’re familiar with a certain poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley. I won’t waste your time or mine by quoting it – you’re free to read it here at your discretion – but suffice it to say that there was little question that we’d be seeing Walt’s downfall continuing in earnest.

Rather than leaping right back into the fray where things left off last week, we’re instead treated to a flashback to Walt and Jesse’s first cook. If this were another show, you might call it a sentimental gesture, given that it ties in to the fact that the big battle is taking place in the very same location, but it’s actually a scene that’s designed to spotlight the precise moment when Walt first began lying to Skyler.

Oh, sure, it’s also nice to see Walt and Jesse during happier times, to get the back story on how “Holly” came into contention as a name for the White’s daughter, and to hear the name “Bogdan” uttered again. (It also reminded me just how long it’s been since I watched the first season of the show: I’d completely forgotten that, at the very beginning, Skyler was also selling stuff to bring in extra income.) But it’s the lie that really matters. If it hadn’t been for that lie, which set up a scenario that necessitated more lies, then Walt might still have a family.

Instead, he has nothing.

Well, you know, except for about 11 million dollars. But that’s hardly a substitute for a wife and kids, now, is it?

Trying to cover this episode in my traditional let’s-discuss-every-single-moment manner seems wholly unnecessary, since I spent most of the hour with my jaw on the floor, trying to decide which were “holy shit” moments and which were “holy fuck” moments, so even though it goes against my natural tendencies, I’m just going to do some stream-of-consciousness discussion and hope for the best.

Just when I think Walt’s crossed a line where I’ll never, ever see him as a sympathetic character again, he goes and says or does something that just barely manages to bring me back from the abyss. Last week, when he tried to use Andrea and Brock as bait to draw out Jesse, I thought he’d crossed that line, but this week he offered to give up all of his money to save Hank’s life. It didn’t work, of course, nor was it ever going to work, as Hank announced moments before uttering the next-to-last sentence of his life (“You’re the smartest guy I ever met, and you’re too stupid to see he made up his mind 10 minutes ago”), but it was still a gesture I wouldn’t have thought Walt capable of making. In short order, however, he backpedaled right back into despicability by confronting Jesse and, in an effort to extract some vague semblance of revenge for Hank’s death, finally unleashed the secret he’d been holding onto for several seasons: that he’d watched Jane die, and even though he could’ve saved her, he didn’t. Once again, I hated Walt, because revealing that information was just an act of spite, plain and simple. By the end of the episode, though, he’d started to win me back over again…but we’ll get to that.

Watching Walt have to roll a barrel full of money through the desert until he’s able to buy a beat-up old pickup truck from an elderly Navaho gentleman was pretty pitiful, but it didn’t come anywhere near hitting the levels of sadness inspired by Marie’s speech to Skyler, knowing that everything she was telling Skyler about Walt’s fate had not, in fact, come to pass, and that her husband and his partner were actually dead and buried in an unmarked grave. I admit to surprise that Skyler was even willing to sit still long enough to discover why Marie had come to talk to her in the first place, but going that direction with their reunion…wow, that was incredible stuff.

And so, of course, was the experience of watching Walt. Jr. – oh, sorry, I mean Flynn (notice how, after Marie makes a point of calling him that, everyone else does as well, doubtlessly in an effort to avoid reminding themselves who he’s named after) – finally find out what his father’s been doing for lo these many seasons. Watching Walt’s world fall down around him when his son, effectively the only person who still believed him to be a real swell guy, realized what an awful human being he actually was… Well, it’s not like we didn’t know it was coming, but it was still rough. You can’t blame Skyler for threatening Walt with a knife when she found out that Hank was dead, and it’s hard not to hate Walt for ending his battle with his wife and son by grabbing Holly and making a run for it, but it makes sense: by virtue of not having any idea what’s going on with anyone anywhere, she’s really the only one left who still loves him…except just not as much as she loves her mama. Look, these are things that happen when you spend more time making meth than making memories with your kids…

Meanwhile, Walt’s surrogate son – once upon a time, anyway – is still hanging on, if only just barely, thanks to Walt bringing down the hammer by revealing Jesse’s hiding place under the car and giving Todd’s uncle a cursory nod to seal his former partner’s fate. Of all people to save Jesse from being executed, who would’ve thought it’d be Todd? I still think we’re destined to see a showdown between the two of them before it’s all over, though, and my money’s still on Jesse, if only because he really, really wants to get back at Walt now.

And what of Walt? Well, having come to his senses and dropped Holly at the nearest fire station, he’s finally taken advantage of Saul’s “guy” and hopped in a van with his luggage and his money, heading off to…New Hampshire, is it? (Man, the beginning of Season 5 seems like a lifetime ago, doesn’t it?) A buddy of mine said that he would’ve been quite happy with the series ending with this episode, as Walt heads off into the sunset. I can’t entirely get behind that – sorry, I need closure on Jesse’s story – but I get where he’s coming from: we’ve still got two episodes left, and I don’t know about you, but I’m scared to death about what’s yet to come.

]]>http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/09/17/breaking-bad-5-14-ozymandias/feed/1Breaking Bad 5.13 – “To’hajiilee”http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/09/11/breaking-bad-5-13-tohajiilee/
http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/09/11/breaking-bad-5-13-tohajiilee/#commentsThu, 12 Sep 2013 03:06:34 +0000http://blog.bullz-eye.com/?p=30544When Walt made assurances at the midway point of Season 5 that he was getting out of the meth manufacturing business, few were foolish enough to believe that he was truly finished, but when Lydia reappeared a few episodes ago to inform him that things weren’t going as well with the operation as he’d led her to believe they would, it still felt like an annoyance.

To Walt, of course, it was an annoyance, the first of what would prove to be many ripples in his otherwise smooth return to a life of normalcy, but it was an annoyance to some viewers as well….or, at least, it was to me. For all his ghastly and increasingly morally bereft actions, I kind of wanted to see Walt get away with it, y’know? Of course, the moment Hank found “Leaves of Grass,” I knew that was never going to happen, but the decision to follow the goings-on of the meth operation during its post-Walt era…well, that just felt like salt in the wound.

Still, I knew it was a means to an end, so I just took a deep breath, accepted the updates on Lydia and Todd as a necessary evil, and waited for Vince Gilligan and company to make those moments worth my while, which is exactly what they did. I never would’ve guessed they’d lead us to where this week’s episode ended, but any annoyances I may have had in the past rapidly disappeared in a hail of bullets.

Now that Todd’s stepped in as resident cook, he’s doing his best to utilize everything he learned from Walt, and damned if he hasn’t stepped up the quality of the product. Too bad it’s still not enough. 76% purity is still a long way from what Walt and Jesse were producing, and the stuff Todd’s thrown together isn’t even blue, for God’s sake. Not that Todd’s uncle and his “business associate” give a shit. They’re more concerned about making money than matching the methodology used by their predecessor. Ever the odd combination of breathtakingly coldblooded, slightly dimwitted, and unfailingly polite, Todd feels bad about the situation and apologizes to Lydia, assuring her, “I’m sure it’s only going to get better.” In response, Lydia continues to live her life like she’s a character in a movie, unabashedly flirting with him – and with Steve Perry’s “Oh, Sherrie” playing in the background, no less – in an obvious attempt to sway him into doing a better job….and Todd, being Todd, he eats it up. As she’s driving away, though, his phone rings (in another ‘80s flashback, the ringtone is Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me with Science”), and when he answers it, we hear Walt’s voice. Suddenly, we’re caught up to where we were last week…and then the next thing you know, the episode was over.

No, seriously, that’s how fast it seemed to go by. “Breaking Bad” has never had a problem with excess, but in its final installments, it’s about as sleek as TV gets, with nary a moment wasted.

Following Jesse’s last-second realization that he had a better way to take Walt down – find out where Walt’s keeping his money, which would be all the evidence they’d need to arrest him – Hank reconvened with Gomey so that everyone could be on the same page with their new plan. It doesn’t take much more than a package of raw meat next to Jesse’s skull to convince Huell that Walt’s on a rampage, leading the big man to give up everything he knows about the whereabouts of Walt’s cash reserves. Unfortunately, what he knows isn’t much, short of the fact that Walt rented a van, drove God knows where, and when he came back, the van was dirty as hell. Despite the lack of a GPS tracker on the vehicle, Hank quickly whips up a clever plan to trick Walt into unwittingly showing them the money…and damned if it doesn’t work.

Before any of that happens, though, we witness Walt’s meeting with Todd’s uncle about his desire to pull an “Old Yeller” on Jesse, an encounter which unexpectedly finds Walt more or less being blackmailed into whipping up one more batch of meth in order to definitively teach Todd the process. He tries desperately to avoid doing it, even offering triple what they were paid for each of their earlier hits, but Todd’s uncle smirks and says that’d only be a drop in the bucket compared to the kind of dough they’d be able to make if they mastered the meth manufacturing process. Begrudgingly, Walt seals the deal with a handshake, then assures the assassins that, although he doesn’t know where Jesse is, “I know to flush him out.” Cut to Brock and his mom. Walt is just a shameless motherfucker in this encounter, lying through his teeth about Jesse using drugs again and convincing Andrea to call and leave a message for Jesse. Sadly for Walt, Jesse never hears the message, as it’s intercepted by Hank (“Nice, try, asshole”), but it doesn’t lessen what an incredibly shitty thing Walt’s done. You’d think we’d be used to it by now, but, no, it’s still cringe-worthy to see just how awful a person he’s become.

Still waiting for Jesse to emerge from hiding, Walt has a meet-up with Saul Goodman at the car wash, resulting in a pretty hilarious moment with Walt, Jr. recognizing him and being downright starstruck and Saul – clearly used to this sort of reaction – reciting his catchphrase and delivering the closing line, “Don’t drink and drive…but if you do, call me!” The conversation between Walt and Saul is decidedly less hilarious, with Saul growing increasingly convinced that Jesse’s killed Huell and Walt dismissing the suggestion out of hand. It’s right about then that he gets the photo from Jesse of the barrel of money.

Walt’s drive into the desert is almost painful to watch, filmed in such a way that you’re convinced that he’s going to wreck at any moment, but, no, he soon arrives at his destination…and would you look at this sentimental fool? Maybe I missed it before, but I had no idea that he’d buried the money in the same spot that he and Jesse had done their first cook. Any fond memories Walt may still have about that momentous occasion quickly dissipate when he realizes that he’s been had.

The final few minutes of the episode were so gripping that I just can’t do them justice in print. With Walt caged like an animal, would he have the balls to try and fight his way out, would he be a coward and pass that responsibility on to Todd’s uncle and his crew, or would he just surrender to his fate and be done with it? Even after walking out with his hands up, I knew there was no way it was going to end that easily, that Todd’s uncle was never going to let his newly acquired meth operation go down without a fight. The way it looked like the wheels in Walt’s brain were spinning, I half expected him announce that Brock and Andrea would be killed if he wasn’t allowed to escape. (I also found myself wondering if baby Holly, who he’d been holding at the car wash, might’ve been asleep in the back seat but that he’d forgotten about her in the haste to keep Jesse from burning his money. Where the hell did she go, anyway?) When Hank called Marie to tell her, “I got him, baby,” I was sure that Hank wasn’t going to make it out of the episode alive…until, moments later, I began to wonder if maybe Walt had sent someone to kill Marie. Jesus, this show inspires some dark thoughts…

I’ll give Vince Gilligan credit: that was a hell of a way to end the episode, without giving us any closure whatsoever on the gun battle. Will things start back on Sunday at the exact same moment where we left off? Either way, I’ll be watching…but, then, you probably already knew that.

Walt gets it, too…but that doesn’t mean he’s not going to confront Jesse without being properly armed. As he sneaks around the back of his house, though, we’re reminded once again that, although he might be a bad-ass as Heisenberg, Walt still doesn’t look all that comfortable when he’s packing heat, and as he walks down the hall, checking every room, he looks less like a professional criminal than a guy who’s learned everything he knows from watching “Starsky & Hutch” reruns. Despite the tension of the scene, it turns out that Walt never had anything to worry about, anyway: Jesse’s nowhere to be found. Any relief he might feel that his house hasn’t been burned to the ground, however, is overwhelmed by concerns of what exactly Jesse is planning to do, so he leaves him a voicemail in the desperate hope that he may yet be able to talk things out.

Unfortunately, the stench and squish of gasoline lingers, necessitating the call-in of a clean-up crew, but the situation’s so bad that even they can’t get rid of the smell before Skyler gets home, no matter how big a bribe Walt offers them. In an act of desperation by a man who – despite making millions as a meth manufacturer – still knows the importance of keeping one’s wife happy, he concocts the best plan he can manage on short notice, claiming that a gas pump malfunctioned while he was filling up the car, soaking him in gasoline. It’s such a shitty lie that neither Skyler nor Walt, Jr. buy into it, but she takes it in stride and waits for the opportunity to call him on it, and although Jr. reasonably presumes that the whole thing is cancer-related, the temptation to stay in an expensive hotel while the house is further cleaned is too great for the young lad to resist.

As Skyler and the kids enjoy the amenities of the hotel, Walt takes a jaunt down to get ice, taking a lengthy detour into the parking garage to meet with Saul and his flunky, Kuby. They haven’t had any luck in finding Jesse yet, although they did manage to get a serious education in “Babylon 5” by monitoring Badger and Skinny Pete’s conversations. Walt’s understandably anxious, but when Saul – who likens Jesse to a bad penny – dares to try steering the conversation again toward permanently removing Jesse from the equation, this time bypassing Belize in favor of an “Old Yeller” reference, he gets the same chilly reaction, along with the downright icy response, “Do not float that idea again.” And with that, the discussion is over…sort of. But we’ll get to that.

When Walt gets back to the room, Skyler calls him out about where he’s been, admitting that, yes, she spied on him, “and I feel just awful about it, too.” Suuuuuure she does. In fact, Skyler’s done listening to Walt’s bullshit, and she tells him as much, demanding to know what’s really going on…and damned if he doesn’t tell her, more or less. But after finding out the real reason their house stinks of gasoline, Walt’s assurances that he can make Jesse see reason fall on deaf ears, and when he argues that it’s still possible to sway Jesse because he changed his mind and didn’t burn their house down, she asks the question that’s apparently obvious to everyone but Walt: “What if he changes it back?” The back and forth between them is intense, but it’s downright heart-stopping when she asks, “We’ve come this far for us. What’s one more?” What makes it so disturbing, though, is her delivery. Walt crossed a line and has been basking in his accomplishments. Skyler just seems resigned to her damnation.

Before jumping back to Jesse, let’s talk briefly about Walt’s poolside chat with Jr., who, yes, continues to be in the dark about his dad’s goings-on. This may be the saddest conversation they’ve had yet, though, since it really seems to highlight just how little this father and son have in common beyond their shared DNA. When Walt’s talking about his cancer, he doesn’t really seem to have his head in the game…not unless you really he’s talking about the disease when he says, “You think I came all this way to let something as silly as lung cancer take me down? Not a chance. I’m not going anywhere.” I don’t think you can argue that Walt loves Jr., but look at their hug: it doesn’t hold anywhere near as much emotional impact as the one between Walt and Jesse. Yes, Walt loves Jr., but he truly cares for Jesse.

And – what luck! – now it’s time to talk about Jesse. Obviously, I was way off track about suspecting that Jesse was responsible for doing the damage to the White house (although we’ve still got a few episodes left, so it could yet happen), but now we know why he didn’t make good on his plans to burn the place to the ground: Hank, who’d been trailing him since he left Saul’s office, stepped in and stopped him from lighting up the joint. Jesse’s just pitiful as Hank pleads with him to stop, screaming about what Walt did to Brock and sobbing, “HE CAN’T KEEP GETTING AWAY WITH IT!” Nor will he, if Hank has his way. The two of them hop into the Hankmobile and drive away just as Walt pulls into view, with Hank taking him back to his house for safe keeping and hoping to convince Marie to head out of town for a bit.

Yeah, that’s not bloody likely to happen. Marie’s therapy session gives us an idea of just how deep into despair she’s fallen about this whole situation, finding herself unable to stop Googling untraceable poisons that she could use to put Walt out of his misery. Her therapist is probably just doing his job by pressing her for more details, but he’s obviously in over his head, given that her previous session was so mundane that the most controversial topic seems to have been her dissatisfaction with the new parking rules at work. In the end, the best advice he can offer her is that there’s no problem that violence won’t make worse, and she assures him that she wouldn’t really hurt anybody, that “it just feels good to think about it.” But if she’s anything like her sister, then if an opportunity presents itself to take Walt down, I can’t imagine she won’t take it. You want proof? When Hank tells her about Jesse, all she asks is if it’s bad for Walt…and when he says it is, she replies, “Good. I’m staying. I’ll heat up a lasagna.”

And so begins Hank’s master plan, which involves bringing Gomez into his trust at last and interviewing Jesse on camera about everything he knows. We don’t need to hear the whole story. We already know it. But just hearing the way Jesse growls the words “he was my teacher” is enough to rip your heart out. Unsurprisingly, Gomez believes Jesse and, in turn, Hank as well, but it’s still just one man’s word, and that’s just not gonna cut it. Thankfully, Hank has a plan, but as plans go, it’s kind of a Hail Mary at best to just send Jesse out to meet Walt and hope he says enough on tape for them to be able to arrest him…oh, and also that Walt doesn’t kill Jesse. Hank lays out to Jesse all the reasons why that’s not likely to happen. ..and then as soon as Jesse leaves the room, Hank shrugs and admits to Gomez that, worst case scenario, they’ll get Jesse’s murder on tape. Proof positive that Hank can be just as ruthless as Walt when the circumstances require it.

Of course, as mentioned, we’ve still got a few episodes yet to go, so naturally things go tits up with Hank’s plan: instead of approaching Walt, Jesse spontaneously dashes to a pay phone, calls Walt’s cell, and says, “Nice try, asshole,” assuring him that he’s coming for him and that “next time I’m gonna get you where you really live.” As expected, Hank’s furious, but Jesse says he’s come up with a better way to get Walt. Here’s hoping that his better way comes to fruition quickly, because Walt’s got a new plan now, too – this one involving Todd’s uncle – and it sounds a whole lot like the ending of “Old Yeller.”

]]>http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/09/03/breaking-bad-5-12-rabid-dog/feed/0Breaking Bad 5.11 – “Confessions”http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/08/28/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions/
http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/08/28/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions/#commentsWed, 28 Aug 2013 23:59:56 +0000http://blog.bullz-eye.com/?p=30263As happy as I am that Vince Gilligan has been given the opportunity to take “Breaking Bad” to its conclusion on his own terms, allowing him to end it now rather than a season or two down the road, each new episode of this final batch continues to further cement just what a tremendous, gaping hole is going to be left in my television viewing habits when the series is gone for good.

I’m not trying to paraphrase the immortal Stiff Records slogan here—there are plenty of series beyond “Breaking Bad” that most certainly are worth a fuck—but no other show on television has ever…and I mean ever…grabbed me the collar the way this one does, making me so profoundly love and so deeply loathe its characters, often shifting between the two extremes within the same scene.

Given my generally “meh” feelings about the Todd and Lydia scene in last week’s episode, it may not be surprising to discover that the opening of this week’s episode at times inspired similar shoulder-shrugging. Again, it provided necessary momentum on meth-manufacturing matters, specifically that Todd’s going to be working with a new crew that’s definitely not exactly the same level of operation that gave him his big break, as it were. Given his call to Walt to offer an update on the “change in management,” I don’t know if we’re supposed to interpret that Todd’s uncertain about his new collaborators or not, but his tone seems to indicate that, at the very least, he’s still very concerned about having Walt’s approval. Someone referred to the conversation at the diner as “‘Pulp Fiction’ lite,” and if they were talking about similarities to Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield, then I definitely see where they’re coming from. (It also makes it highly appropriate that Samuel L. Jackson was a special guest on “Talking Bad” this week.”) Between this and the “Star Trek”’ monologue, there’s definitely more than a little bit of Tarantino infiltrating these final episodes…which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but—and I think I said this about the “Star Trek” monologue, too—I do wish it was a bit farther under the surface.

Hank’s conversation with Jesse proved to be far less intense than I’d anticipated, due to Hank having not only learned from their last close encounter, which was a decidedly more violent affair, but also from his investigation. He might seem like the least likely guy to play “good cop,” but damned if he didn’t pull it off. Not that it helped him very much: Jesse seemed initially to be veering between being in a state of shock and having an out-of-body experience, and once Hank’s reference to Walt being his brother-in-law shook him at least somewhat back to reality, he immediately (and understandably) shifted into bitter-and-angry mode, which he maintained to the point of acknowledging that, okay, yeah, he might be ready to talk, “but not to you.” Cue Saul Goodman, stepping in to save his client from saying anything further and defining the whole situation perfectly with a mere four words: “Things have gone nuclear.”

At last, Walt, Jr. makes the scene! He may be underused and underdeveloped (actually, there’s no “may be” about either of those things), and he’s the last of the series’ main characters to remain completely in the dark about Walt’s criminal activities, but in a single glance at his father, he still manages to see that his dad is not a well man. Given Walt’s ways, it’s obviously impossible to say for sure how much truth he managed to dole out in his conversation with his son, but at least he’s admitting that the cancer has reared its head again, even if his reason for doing so was to manipulate Jr. into staying with him rather than go over to ostensibly play I.T. guy for his Aunt Marie. The closer we get to the end of the series, the more I wonder if Jr. may end up forever unaware of the sort of man his father has been…and if he’ll be keeping that permanent innocence because someone decides to use Heisenberg’s son to send him a message.

We’ve seen a lot of love and tension both in the relationship of Hank and Marie, but it never seems to be worse than when he perceives that she’s trying to tell him how to do his job…which, unfortunately, is exactly what happens in advance of their meeting—and aborted meal—with Walt and Skyler…like that conversation needed any more tension. Wisely, Walt picked as public a restaurant as he could find, presumably in hopes of helping keep everyone’s voices down, although as my AntennaFree.TV comrade-in-arms Mike Moody mentioned in our roundtable conversation for the site (one that I missed out on this week, unfortunately), it also seemed to serve as a bit of an “Office Space” homage as well. In addition to seeing a glimpse of Hank’s original relationship with Walt resurfacing (“Step up and be a man”), the level of Marie’s loathing becomes clear when she tells him outright to just go ahead and kill himself, a position which would seem to spell the end of any possible chance of her and Skyler ever reconciling. The only way I see it happening at this point is if Walt unabashedly puts Skyler or, worse, one of his kids in harm’s way to save himself. If that happens, then I think Skyler would feel so betrayed that even the prospect of a lifetime of hearing Marie tell her “I told you so” wouldn’t be enough for her to stay on Walt’s side.

Okay, it’s time to ask: how about that “confession,” huh? There’s your no-holds-barred “holy shit” moment, my friend…several of them, in fact, all in a row…and it seems to go on forever. We already knew that Walt was a brilliant scientist and a masterful liar, but watching him weave this tremendous blanket of lies, interspersed with threads of the truth which are documentable and put Hank in places and situations which—in the context in which Walt has placed them—make Hank out to be basically the worst human being ever and, even more despicably, paint Walt as the victim. Hank’s pretty sure that Walt hasn’t shown it to anyone yet and that it’s just a threat to get him to back off, but by dropping in the discussion of Hank’s medical bills, the truth of what Marie’s done comes out, which Hank deems “the last nail in the coffin.” (Despite telling Marie, “You killed me here,” though, he seems to accept somewhere in his heart that she did it for the right reasons. That, or he believes himself to be so completely fucked that he can’t even find the energy to be mad at her anymore.) Hank still can’t bring himself to confide in Gomey, but he’s clearly not just going to sit around and let Walt keep the upper hand, either. I don’t know where’s he off to when we last saw him, but it can’t possibly bode well for Walt.

Time to wrap up with the lengthiest topic of discussion: the Jesse / Walt relationship. To say that it goes through some changes this episode would be a bit of an understatement, but it all starts with their conversation in the desert. At first, they’re all business, with Jesse filling Walt in on his encounter with Hank, but then Walt goes into dad mode, telling Jesse, “I don’t like to see you hurting like this,” and suggesting that “maybe it’s time for a change.” Although Jesse seems at first to be accepting the merit of “hitting the reset button,” Walt’s suggestion that he might someday come to view the goings-on of the past months as “nothing more than a bad dream” shakes him out of his reverie and causes him to ask, “Would you for once just stop working me for 10 seconds straight?” He just wants Walt to be honest and tell him that he doesn’t give a shit about him, that he wanted to meet him in the desert because he wanted to be in a position to “send him to Belize” if necessary, and given the way Jesse twitches when Walt approaches him, he clearly believed that his “travel arrangements” were in order. Whether Jesse burst into tears because he wants so badly to trust Walt one last time or because it’s the only reaction he can produce to not getting a knife in the back, who can say? But it doesn’t matter, really, given what goes down between Jesse and Saul.

We’ve known about Saul’s “guy” who can help people disappear for quite some time now, but it always seemed like it was going to be Walt who utilized him. Instead, Saul calls him up for Jesse, who once again seems full of contradictory emotions, but after trying and failing to toke up in Saul’s office, Jesse seems to accept the possibility that, yes, perhaps moving to Alaska might just have some merit to it after all. Indeed, if only Huell hadn’t done that switcheroo with his stash, he might well have been living the good life in Juneau by now. Unfortunately, seeing the pack of cigarettes where his baggie used to be set his neurons to firing much like “Leaves of Grass” did for Hank, and the next thing you know, Jesse’s beating the ever-living shit out of Saul Goodman. (If you’re not quite confident of what went down, Emilia Goodman gives a well-considered synopsis of why it works, even if your instinct is to think that it doesn’t.) For me, the most interesting thing about that ass-kicking was that the audio of Saul’s line about how he never would’ve done it if he’d known what Walt was going to do with the Ricin cigarette was used in some of the promos for the episode, yet when I heard it, I was quite convinced that it was being said by Jesse in the midst of Hank interrogating him. Was I the only one who thought that?

When Walt gets word of what’s happened, he’s understandably freaked out, rushing back to the car wash to get his gun in a scene where he seems to briefly channel Hal from “Malcolm in the Middle” while also confirming that, despite his ability to spin remarkably effective lies to just about everyone else, he’s pretty shitty at it when he’s making stuff up in conversation with Skyler. Fortunately for him, I think she’s probably past the point of no return when it comes to believing anything Walt has to say, anyway. The big question now, though, is whether or not Walt will end up using his gun next week.

It never occurred to me that Jesse might be the one who did the damage to the White house. In retrospect, though, it probably should’ve. There was never any way that Walt’s lies to his former partner weren’t going to catch up with him at some point. The only thing we’re waiting on now is how long it’ll be ‘til it gets out that Walt was responsible for Jane’s death, but you know it’s coming…and when it gets here, it’s gonna make this week’s reaction look like a toddler’s temper tantrum.

]]>http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/08/28/breaking-bad-5-11-confessions/feed/1Breaking Bad 5.10 – “Buried”http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/08/20/breaking-bad-5-10-buried/
http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/08/20/breaking-bad-5-10-buried/#commentsTue, 20 Aug 2013 16:42:47 +0000http://blog.bullz-eye.com/?p=29900(CAVEAT: Portions of this review originally appeared in the AntennaFree.TV piece, ‘Breaking Bad’ Critics’ Thread: Secrets are Unearthed in ‘Buried’, which also features reflections from Joel Keller, Mike Moody, and Mekeisha Madden Toby, all of whom are pretty damned fine writers in their own right.)

When this week’s episode of ‘Breaking Bad’ kicked off, the only thing that was running through my mind was a comment I read somewhere last week: “Join us next time on ‘Breaking Bad’ when Walt breaks the uncomfortable silence and asks, ‘So, Hank, you, uh, gonna open the garage door?’” Before we reached that point, though, we had a quick pre-credits look at what happened in the wake of Jesse’s free-money spree. Last week, I wrote, “It’s only a matter of time before someone identifies the car and says, ‘Let’s see if he’s got any more,’” but that’s not exactly what happened, although someone did end up following the trail back to where it began.

I was completely convinced we were going to follow the old man on his path of picking up packets of bills until he met up with someone else who was following the money trail from the other end, at which point things would go terribly wrong…but, no, the trail instead led straight to Jesse, literally going in circles on the playground merry-go-round. It’s a great overheard shot, and knowing this show, the whole going-in-circles thing is probably meant as a metaphor, since he’s clearly wracked with guilt and has no idea what the hell he’s supposed to do. We don’t actually see what happens after the old man stumbles upon him, but he clearly ends up in police custody at some point. (I’m just hoping the old guy ends up keeping a decent amount of cash for himself.)

After the credits, we finally get to see Walt leaving Hank’s garage, a moment in which the silence between both men speaks volumes, but the second Walt’s back in his car, he’s on the phone and desperately trying to get Skyler on the phone. The fact that Hank’s beaten Walt to the punch in contacting his own wife feels like a sneak preview of the battle that’s going to be going on between these two guys throughout the upcoming episodes. Walt might be a bad-ass when he’s in Heisenberg mode, but Hank’s a bad-ass 24/7, and if Walt can’t manage to maintain that level of intensity at all times, he’s going to find himself quickly outmatched.

For a moment, I was surprised that Skyler conceded to meet with Hank, but then it occurred to me that, really, what choice did she have? If he told her outright what he knew about Walt’s goings-on, with no indication that he knew how deep her involvement went, then meeting with him would be the best way to go, if only to try and further his presumption that she was stuck in her situation under duress. When Hank refers to Walt as a monster, however, there’s a look in Skyler’s eyes that’s hard to read: is it a sudden awareness that Hank’s right, or is it a momentary glimpse of Mrs. Walter White thinking, “Look, he might be a monster, but you don’t get to call him that”?

Given her reaction to his comment about how she’s “done being the victim,” it seems most likely that it’s the side of Skyler we saw confronting Lydia last week, the one that’s enjoying her new life as a business owner and doesn’t want to give that up. When Hank tries to get her to go on the record about what Walt’s done over the past several months, she reasonably balks, probably unsure how much she really wants to give up about her husband’s activities, but when Hank reveals a piece of information that she didn’t know – that Walt’s cancer has returned – it’s clear that she’s turned a corner and made the decision to keep her mouth shut. (Mind you, if she hadn’t decided it at that moment, then she certainly would’ve done it when Hank said, “It’s in your best interest to get out there and show the world that you have nothing to hide,” since lord knows she’s got plenty to hide.)

The scene with Huell and Koby in the cash-filled storage locker may have ultimately served the same purpose as Badger and Skinny Pete’s “Star Trek” story last week, i.e. to provide a moment of light amidst an otherwise dark hour, but I thought it proved more effective at its task, possibly because I like Bill Burr, but most likely just because they worked a Scrooge McDuck reference into the proceedings. (I don’t know if anyone’s listening, but after Vince Gilligan gets this Saul Goodman spinoff green-lit, I’d be all about seeing someone move forward with “The Further Adventures of Huell and Koby.”) It seems pretty obvious from the knowing glances between the two guys when they’re briefing Walt on his barrels of bucks that they’d already taken a little bit off the top for themselves even before he’s told them to go ahead and take their cut, but he’s freaking out too much to really consider the possibility that they might’ve done so, and they’ve done enough dirty work for Saul over the course of the past season or two that they’ve clearly earned whatever they’ve managed to swipe, and then some.

There’s an interesting dynamic between Walt and Saul during their conversation in the latter’s office, due to the absence of the usual undercurrent of humor to the things Saul has to say. When he tells Walt to take the battery out of his phone because they could be using it to track his movements, adding, “I’m not being paranoid,” we know he’s right, which is strangely disconcerting. A few moments later, when he suggests that Walt may want to consider sending Hank “on a trip to Belize,” it’s the sort of line that could’ve earned a laugh in the past, but Bob Odenkirk – a man who knows comedic timing – delivers it in a way that isn’t funny…which is only appropriate, since we know that it really could come down to that. (With that said, I did laugh out loud when Walt dismissed the suggestion, muttering, “‘Send him to Belize…’ I’ll send you to Belize!”)

Walt’s decision to bury the money in the desert all by his lonesome may be one that comes back to haunt him, given how much energy he expended to accomplish the task (case and point, the way he passed out on the floor of the bathroom after he got home), but the deed’s done, and if things pan out the way he’s hoping, then if nothing else, at least he’ll have succeeded in the whole reason he got into the meth-manufacturing business in the first place: to provide for his family. Given the flash-forward that started last week’s episode, however, it’s clear that things have not, in fact, gone exactly how he’d hoped. We just have to wait and see whether or not the end result works out the same nonetheless.

As seen in the meeting between Hank and Skyler, Hank now comprehends that Skyler’s eccentricities were her way of dealing with what she knew about Walt’s activities, but it took the conversation between the two sisters before it became apparent to Mr. and Mrs. Schrader exactly how long Skyler had been aware of Walt’s shenanigans. The scene with Skyler and Marie battling back and forth over Holly was – somewhat surprisingly, given the competition – one of the most tension-filled moments of the episode, partially because both women felt they were doing the right thing, but predominantly (at least for me) because Marie is as much of a wild card as any of the folks in Heisenberg’s crew. I mean, I didn’t think she was going to suddenly snap the baby’s neck or anything, but we know she’s a little off-center. Because of that, I simply had no clue what her next move might have been. As such, I was totally white-knuckling it ‘til Hank finally got her to hand over Holly and end the stand-off.

It remains to be seen if the relationship between Skyler and Marie is reparable, but given Marie’s comments to her sister and her terse statement to Hank when she gets back in the car (“You have to get him”), it ain’t exactly looking good for both of them to be in attendance at the next family reunion. The bond between Hank and Marie, however, remains as strong as ever. Although he’s on the verge of falling down the same rabbit hole that’s tripped him up before, namely his tendency to always want to be the one who nails the son of a bitch, she talks him down a bit, and while he justifiably claims that his career in law enforcement is likely to be over no matter how things play out, he accepts her argument that he doesn’t have to do this thing all by himself.

Speaking of martial bonds, I don’t know that anyone else found it as darkly funny as I did, but my favorite exchange in the entire episode was probably the quiet one between Walt and Skyler when he confirms to her that his cancer’s return.

Walt: “Does that make you happy?”

Skyler: “I can’t remember the last time I was happy.”

That’s as may be, but given the heartfelt conservation between husband and wife, the ties that bind Skyler and Walt together aren’t as weak as they were even as recently as last season. If they truly are going to be working together for the long haul, then Team White may yet prove to be a force to be reckoned with.

As for the whole Lydia & Todd storyline, I suppose it’s a necessary evil, since it was always inevitable that Walt’s attempt to distance himself from the meth manufacturing business would eventually lead to a “just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in” moment, but effective though it may have been, it was still probably my least favorite part of the episode. With that said, I freely admit that Lydia is proving to be a more faceted character than I’d previously suspected. With all due respect to Jesse Plemons, though, I’m hoping Todd gets taken out soon…and that Jesse gets to be the guy who does it. Not that Jesse needs to have any more blood on his hands, but, man, you just know how good it’d make him feel.

And speaking of Jesse, to bring this whole thing full circle, being on the other side of the table from Hank is arguably one of the better directions in which Jesse’s life could go, given the way things have been going in his life. Mind you, this particular conversation has the potential to go terribly, terribly wrong, but in the long run, I see Jesse being willing to just say, “Fuck it, I’ll tell you everything I know, because I deserve to suffer the repercussions for everything I’ve been involved in.”

One last thing:

In a small but notable case of the series steadfastly refusing to avoid predictability, I couldn’t help but admire the fact that Walt did not run over the remote-controlled car outside Hank’s house.

]]>http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/08/20/breaking-bad-5-10-buried/feed/0Breaking Bad 5.9 – “Blood Money”http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/08/11/breaking-bad-5-9-blood-money/
http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/08/11/breaking-bad-5-9-blood-money/#commentsMon, 12 Aug 2013 02:21:49 +0000http://blog.bullz-eye.com/?p=29710“Breaking Bad” has always had a way with an opening shot, and the first image of the series’ final eight episodes is no exception, offering a slow, gradual pull-out from a bunch of skate rats to reveal that their choice of locate is the decidedly empty and apparently long-dormant White house. Moments later, when a heavily haired Walter White pulls up, it’s clarified that we’re back in the timeline established in the early moments of the first half of Season Five, when Walt purchased some serious firepower from his now-regular weapons guy (played by Jim Beaver). And, oh, what a dark timeline it must be, based not only on Walt’s haggard look, but on the graffiti he finds when he’s forced to break into his own house. If things are destined to reach a point where the world at large has not only identified him as Heisenberg but, indeed, has had his identify spray-painted across his living room wall…well, let’s just say these are going to be the longest eight episodes viewers have seen in a very long time.

Wandering through the wreckage that once was his house, Walt manages to confirm that, despite all the carnage surrounding him, one of his hiding places has remained secure: underneath the electrical outlet. I couldn’t quite see what he retrieved – was it the vial of ricin? – but I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough…much as we’ll find out exactly what the hell happened to make his poor neighbor Carol react in such a horrified fashion to the mere sight of Walt. Clearly, it’s no fun living next door to Heisenberg.

Post-credits, it’s back into Walt’s bedroom, except we’ve flashed back to where we were when we last left “Breaking Bad.” It’s impossible to get completely inside Hank’s head, but we come pretty damned close with the help of director…Bryan Cranston? True. The man’s come a long way behind the camera, clearly learning as much as possible from the folks who’ve helmed past episodes of the series, because he nails the panic, anxiety, and horror in Hank’s gradual realization of what his brother-in-law has been doing for the past five seasons.

As Hank and Marie drive away from the White house, Walt, Skyler, Junior, and Holly look like the perfect little family, don’t they? But then, the whole “appearances can be deceiving” has been Walt’s stock and trade since the beginning of his meth-making operation, and one could argue that the same premise applies to Hank as well. He started out as a loudmouth blowhard who seemed more like a former high school quarterback who kept his ego intact when he entered the work force, but we’ve seen several different sides of the guy now, and it’s never been more evident than it is in this episode that he’s a great goddamned detective. It’s hard to say that he’s applying Occam’s razor here, since the idea of Walt being the mastermind behind a major meth operation is the simplest explanation, but it’s a thing of both beauty and sadness to watch him work out everything that Walt’s been responsible for. It’s clear that he still doesn’t fully accept it ‘til the very end of the episode, but when that chilling exchange in the garage takes place…

Oh, but I’m getting ahead of myself.

You can actually hear the sound of Skyler seething when Walt launches into his explanation about what changes can and should be enacted at the car wash. It’s the only thing in their “family business” that she’s had any opportunity to put her stamp on, yet he’s making it clear in his usual way that, once again, he’s better than she is at making decisions. At the same time, though, his suggestion about pursuing a new location clearly catches her fancy, and when Lydia swings by and Skyler realizes that this woman has something to do with Walt’s earlier endeavors, she decides she’s going to shut Lydia down before the bitch fucks up the good thing she’s got going. As for Lydia, the decline in quality is clearly an issue that’s only going to get worse, so let’s not even pretend that this is the last we’ve seen of her.

Sometime in the immediate wake of the season premiere, we will learn that Quentin Tarantino guest wrote the Badger / Skinny Pete “Star Trek” scene…or, at least, I hope we will, because it’s so unabashedly Tarantino-esque that that’s really the only excuse for it. Not that I didn’t get several good laughs out of it, but it’s a major QT homage, so much so that I like to think that’s the real reason Jesse stormed out of the apartment and ran off to Saul’s office.

By the way, how far have we fallen as a society that Jesse can’t get in to see the good Mr. Goodman until he lights up a cigarette and is hustled out of the waiting room? What…? A joint, you say? Huh. Well, not being familiar with the demon weed myself, I wouldn’t know. Anyway, once he pops in to see Saul, we discover that the reason Jesse’s acting so out of it is that he’s seriously wracked with guilt. He doesn’t want any part of his money anymore, preferring to give it to Mike’s granddaughter and the parents of the poor bike-riding kid who was in the wrong place at the wrong time late last season. Saul digs through his drawer full of cell phones, dares to break his silence with Walt, and is told, “I’ll handle it.” But then we see where Walt is when he’s taking the call. Whatever’s going on with his cancer, he’s clearly not in a good place if he’s getting that kind of treatment.

The conversation between Walt and Jesse is one of the most heartbreaking in the series, in part because it harkens back to the father-son bond that the two of them seemed to have at one point, but when Jesse says, “I think (Mike’s) dead, and I think you know that,” it’s clear that the ties have been permanently severed between them. Walt’s spun a lot of lies in his time, but Jesse’s not buying what he’s selling anymore. In fact, the look in Jesse’s eyes is the same one we’ve already seen in Skyler’s: utter fear. He’s scared shitless, he doesn’t know what the hell to do, so he starts acting on instinct, just driving around and randomly throwing wads of money out of his car window. It’s only a matter of time before someone identifies the car and says, “Let’s see if he’s got any more…”

Back in the White family’s façade of domesticity, Walt feels the effect of his chemo while catching a bonus round of nausea from the realization that Hank’s gotten hold of his copy of Leaves of Grass. (By the way, during the TCA tour, another critic questioned how realistic it was that Walt noticed so quickly that the book was gone, and I argued that it wasn’t like there was that much reading material in the bathroom to begin with. If there had been, do you really think that Hank would’ve been flipping through poetry? This was deemed a reasonable explanation.) In short order, Walt realizes that it’s not paranoia if they really are out to get you, discovering that Hank’s put a tracking device on his car. So, yeah, that confrontation you knew was coming but that you figured you’d have to wait a few episodes for…? Fuck that: it’s happening tonight.

It starts off slow, with Walt pulling up in front of Hank’s place and feigning small talk for a few minutes before finally, just before pretending to make his departure (a move no doubt designed to throw Hank off balance by making him think he hadn’t found the tracking device yet), revealing the real reason for his visit. As soon as Hank began to bring down the garage door, it was clear that the hammer was about to come down with it, but that fist still came flying out of nowhere. Hank’s fury as he reels off the various moments of horror over the past few months that Walt, that Heisenberg, has been responsible for, is glorious. Now that he’s realized everything Walt’s done, he’s not going to buy into Walt’s lies, but he does hesitate momentarily when Walt reveals that his cancer’s back and that he’s not likely to live more than another six months. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s false, and as viewers, we’ve been given just enough rope in this rope to hang ourselves with. We are both Jesse and Hank: we know Walt’s a fucking liar, but…what if he isn’t?

The closing exchange answers that question as well as it can be answered at this point.

“I don’t know who you are. I don’t even know who I’m talking to.”

“If that’s true, if you don’t know who I am, then maybe the best course would be to tread lightly.”

Goosebumps.

]]>http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2013/08/11/breaking-bad-5-9-blood-money/feed/1Breaking Bad 5.08: Gliding Over Allhttp://blog.bullz-eye.com/2012/09/03/breaking-bad-5-08-gliding-over-all/
http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2012/09/03/breaking-bad-5-08-gliding-over-all/#commentsMon, 03 Sep 2012 20:48:57 +0000http://blog.bullz-eye.com/?p=18707SPOILER WARNING: This post will appear every Monday following a new episode of “Breaking Bad.” It is intended to be read after seeing the show’s latest installment as a source of recap and analysis. As such, all aspects and events that have occurred up to and including the episode discussed are fair game.

“If you say in the first chapter that there is a rifle hanging on the wall, in the second or third chapter it absolutely must go off. If it’s not going to be fired, it shouldn’t be hanging there.”

There’s a ridiculous amount to discuss from “Gliding Over All,” the midseason finale of “Breaking Bad,” but for now we’ve just got to cut to it. What’s it? The chase. The ending. The cliffhanger. The biggest revelation by a fictional character since “Einhorn is Finkle.” That’s right, Walter White is Heisenberg, and Hank finally knows it, only Walt doesn’t know Hank knows. What else?

It was the single biggest Chekov’s Gun in a show full of seemingly nothing but. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, click the link, or reread the quote up top. In any half decent piece of narrative art, there is no wasted space. When it comes to a show like “Breaking Bad,” that means not a single element is simply thrown in. Not a scene, not a line of dialogue, not a single shot, not a single piece of character background. When it comes to “Breaking Bad” specifically, that means the country’s best meth cook wasn’t going to not be found out by his DEA agent brother in-law. There was never not going to be a final confrontation between the two.

In case you missed any part of it, let’s recap: Just prior to the ending, Walt has more money than he knows what to do with and is finally out of the meth business. The family’s having a nice barbecue when Hank decides to drop a deuce. Once on the porcelain throne, he absentmindedly reaches back for some reading material to find a collection of Walt Whitman poems. Boring. Except that Walt was given this particular collection by one Gale Boetticher, his former partner, a man whose obsession with him bordered on religious.

You see, after he was killed, Hank was given Gale’s file to look over. What he found was enough to convince him that Gale was Heisenberg, a notion Walt helped back up with some insightful chemistry knowledge in the fourth episode of season four, “Bullet Points” (if you’ve got Netflix Instant, click this link and skip to the 20:50 mark). There was just one problem, the notebook included a dedication to “W.W.,” and for the life of him, Hank could not discern who it referred to. “Who do you figure that is,” Hank asks Walt, “Woodrow Wilson? Willy Wonka?” before jokingly adding, “Walter White?” Walt flipped the pages and found a spot where Gale had written down a poem, and told Hank that its author, Walt Whitman, was his W.W.

Fast forward to the finale. Hank finds a book of Walt Whitman poems, with an inscription from “G.B.” to “W.W.” in a handwriting he recognizes. Everything comes back to him as he suddenly recalls Walt’s response to his joking accusation, “You got me.” Hank realizes that not only has Heisenberg been staring him in the face this whole time, he’s made the same mistake his former boss did with Gus Fring. Recall what that supervisor had to say, “That whole night we were laughing, telling stories, drinking wine… and he’s somebody else completely… Right in front of me… right under my nose.”

This is heavy stuff, because for Hank, the “Heisenberg problem” is beyond personal. In “Bullet Points,” when Hank thought Gale was his man, the fact that he was dead still wasn’t enough. “God, I wanted to get this guy… I mean me, personally, you know?” he tells Walt. “I wanted to be the one to slap the handcuffs on him, that kind of shit. Popeye Doyle waving to Frog One.” Walt points out that in the first “French Connection” movie, Popeye never catches the bad guy, to which Hank responds “Yeah, I guess, me and old Popeye, huh? A day late and a dollar short.” Hank may have been a day late, but now his chance to come out more than a few dollars ahead, and we can be certain he’s not going to make the same mistake as his supervisor, not twice, not now that he sees the problem’s been hiding in plain sight this whole time. In so many words: Shit’s. Gon’. Go. Down.

“I’m out.”

It took Walt a long time to finally get where he wanted: a place that could satisfy his terrible arrogance, one where he was in total control, answering to no one, and making more money than Skyler could count, let alone launder. After Walt spent the first half of “Gliding Over All” tying up what he thought were his final loose ends, the second half showed him occupying the position he’d wanted so badly. But Walt finds that the “empire business” is just another grind, a feeling made more poignant by his conversation with Hank regarding a summer job the latter had back in high school. So when Skyler shows Walt the pile of green paper on the storage room floor, he’s ready to quit, and he returns to his original goals: family, security, stability.

As that first half rolled along, we all waited patiently for something to go wrong, for that arrogance to be Walt’s ultimate undoing. What we got was, well, nothing. It seemed Walt really was as good at running a criminal empire as he though he’d be. Lydia’s offer to make Walt the foremost methamphetamine supplier of the Czech Republic makes him a boatload of cash and allows him to put aside his plan to use ricin to poison her. He engineers a prison massacre, as the ten people with enough knowledge to put him behind bars are killed within two minutes. Walt even pays Jesse the $5 million he owes and stays a while to reminisce. Jesse is surprised as we are to find nothing but cash in the duffel bags left outside his door. A discovery which causes him to toss his gun and fall back against a wall, almost in tears. All the stars align and everything is right in the universe. Walt’s going to get out , arrogance in tow.

But he doesn’t. He can’t. As the Whites and the Schraders sat around the table in the backyard, we still knew that something was going to happen. It had to. The fucked-up mind this show has given me had me searching everywhere, would Walt Jr. slip and knock the baby in the pool? Was there poison in that sunscreen that Walt had forgotten about?

Nope. In the end, it wasn’t anything like the first half’s enormous displays of hubris that were Walt’s undoing. Instead, it was another, smaller event that occurred in the third episode of this season: As Walt unpacked his things after moving back into the house, he finds a Walt Whitman book, his lips curl into the tiniest of smiles, and he places it on his bedside table. After all that’s occurred, everything Walt’s done over the past four and a half seasons, it was this casual act that will lead to his downfall. As of yet, it seems the biggest tragedy of Walter White’s life has not been “flying to close to the sun and getting his throat cut,” but returning to Earth and realizing that he was his own loose end, that he couldn’t stick the comfortable landing he’d worked so hard to create, and that the lower you are, the harder you fall.

So that’s it, another ten months without “Breaking Bad” are before us. Since you’ve got all that time to spare, you might want to go back and watch the first four and a half seasons before returning to this last episode. “Gliding Over All” contained so much imagery and so many parallels that I couldn’t begin to list them here (let alone launder them). I also recommend checking out FX’s “Sons of Anarchy” (the first three seasons are on Netflix Instant if you need to catch up). Check back here on September 12, the day after the show’s fifth season premier, and you’ll find a post just like this one discussing it. “Sons” is no “Breaking Bad,” that much is certain, but it’ll help kill the time.

Watch the cast and crew go inside “Gliding Over All” below and follow the writer on Twitter @NateKreichman.

]]>http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2012/09/03/breaking-bad-5-08-gliding-over-all/feed/0Breaking Bad 5.07: Say My Namehttp://blog.bullz-eye.com/2012/08/27/breaking-bad-5-07-say-my-name/
http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2012/08/27/breaking-bad-5-07-say-my-name/#commentsTue, 28 Aug 2012 00:05:54 +0000http://blog.bullz-eye.com/?p=18358SPOILER WARNING: This post will appear every Monday following a new episode of “Breaking Bad.” It is intended to be read after seeing the show’s latest installment as a source of recap and analysis. As such, all aspects and events that have occurred up to and including the episode discussed are fair game.

Classic Coke

In my post for last week’s episode, “Buyout,” I concocted a theory that Walt’s plan (“everybody wins”) would have something to do with creating some kind of fake or ersatz meth. It was based on a few small clues: Hank’s comparison of Miracle Whip and mayonnaise, a news report about a kelp-based caviar knock-off, and Jesse’s comment about “truth in advertising, yo.” Well, it turns out I was part right, which is pretty good for a show as unpredictable as “Breaking Bad.”

See, it wasn’t Walt making the knock-off, it was Declan, the big-time meth dealer the guys met with. Declan and his crew have been aping Walt’s product for some time. They switched to a P2P cook and even started using blue food coloring to make their customers think they had the real deal. But in reality, they were only getting a product that was 70 percent pure, nothing compared to Walter’s 99.1 percent. “It’s grade school tee-ball versus the New York Yankees,” Walt explains, “yours is some tepid off-brand cola. What I’m making is classic Coke.” Incredulous, Declan replies that all he has to do is kill Walt right there, and poof, no more competition, no more Coke. It’s only Walt asking if he “really wants to live in a world without Coca-cola” that stops him. Originally, Declan wanted to buy all that methylamine to put Heisenberg out of business. Instead, he ended up buying major stock.

All this is directly related to another revelation from last week’s episode, that Walt’s motivations are not quite so noble as they once were. He is no longer the guy who got a bad rap his whole life, up to and including getting lung cancer, struggling to obtain some sort of safety net for his family ($737,000 to be exact). That is, assuming he ever was. Nowadays it’s about being Heisenberg, “the best meth cook in America.” It’s about the “empire business,” and proving to everyone that looked down at him that he really is superior.

This notion was given further credence when Jesse showed up to get his share of the money. Prior to that point, Walt had simply brushed Jesse aside each time he brought up that he, like Mike, would be getting out of the meth business. When it comes down to it, and Jesse (finally) sticks to his guns, Walt is entirely unable to understand why he would want to quit. “Being the best at something is a rare thing,” Walt says, “You don’t just toss something like that away.” But Jesse doesn’t care about being the best, or all the money he stands to make. He even walks away from the $5 million he’s owed, and still it simply does not register with Walt that anyone could not care about the things that motivate him. Heisenberg is always calm and collected because things always go his way. For him, “it’s all there, black and white, clear as crystal.” He’s an emotionless meth-making machine. But as Jesse turns his back, Heisenberg’s robotic calm evaporates, only instead of printing error messages and beeping “does not compute,” he screams “If you leave you get nothing! [You lose! Good day sir!]”

When Todd becomes Walt’s new cooking partner, it’s clear that all is not well in the Kingdom of Heisenberg. However, Todd’s willingness to learn (studying his notes during a break) and refusing to discuss his cut of the money until he’s earned it pleases Walt. At the very least he’s got someone with similar ambitions, and who’s already proven that he will do whatever is necessary to succeed (like, you know, shooting an innocent child). “I don’t need you to be Antoine Lavoisier,” Walt says, “What I do need is your full attention. Listen and apply yourself.” Of course, Todd was never going to get a reference to an 18th century scientist (“the father of modern chemistry”), which just goes to show that Walt’s words weren’t meant to reassure anyone but himself.

The End of Ehrmantraut

I’ll say it again, this entire season (and series) has been about the transformation of mild-mannered Walter White into criminal mastermind Heisenberg. There’s just one problem with this scenario though: the first episode of the season showed what appeared to be a subdued Walter returning from exile in New Hampshire to buy an M60 in a Denny’s. Heisenberg’s little “say my name” tirade was his apex, his “high-water mark.” Killing Mike was the first move in the opposite direction, “the place where the wave broke and rolled back.”

When Walt tells Jesse that no one else needs to get hurt because they are now in control of their business, Jesse responds with “You keep saying that and it’s bullshit every time.” And how correct he was. Almost directly after letting those words drip out of his mouth, Walter up and kills Mike essentially for hurting his feelings. Walter has left more than a couple bodies in his wake as he rose to the top, but this is the first one that was entirely without purpose. Walt’s decision to kill Mike was made based on pure emotion, the exact pride and ego Mike had just finished scolding him about.

Just after firing the killing shot, Walt had a look on his face that we haven’t seen in a while. It was one of fear, of surprise. It represented a lack of understanding. For the first time in a while, things didn’t go exactly according to Heisenberg’s plans. After working so hard for so long to be “in control,” he couldn’t even control himself. Walt follows Mike down to the river, and immediately recognizes that the whole thing could have been avoided, as he could have gotten the names of Mike’s “guys” from Lydia. Mike responds, “shut the fuck up and let me die in peace.” A badass ending for a badass character.

The fact is Walt can still get the names from Lydia, and he will, based on the sneak peek into next week’s episode, the last of the summer. To save himself, Walt needs to do something about the guys in jail, and I’d be willing to bet Todd’s “prison connections” are going to come back into play.

]]>http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2012/08/27/breaking-bad-5-07-say-my-name/feed/0Breaking Bad 5.06: Buyouthttp://blog.bullz-eye.com/2012/08/20/breaking-bad-5-06-buyout/
http://blog.bullz-eye.com/2012/08/20/breaking-bad-5-06-buyout/#commentsMon, 20 Aug 2012 20:43:35 +0000http://blog.bullz-eye.com/?p=18180SPOILER WARNING: This post will appear every Monday following a new episode of “Breaking Bad.” It is intended to be read after seeing the show’s latest installment as a source of recap and analysis. As such, all aspects and events that have occurred up to and including the episode discussed are fair game.

The Aftermath: Bikes, Bodies, and Hydrofluoric Acid

Alright, we’ve got to talk about the cold open, again. Everything about it was fantastic: the near complete lack of dialogue paired with that ominous music, the methodical way Walter, Todd, and Mike, go about decomposing the bike (and the body), all of it. But that’s not really what I want to discuss.

Rather, let’s think about what it says about the quality of the show and the way it has shaped the thinking of its viewers that we don’t need dialogue explaining what’s going on. This week’s “Story Sync” tells us that the young boy’s body is the fifth dissolved in hydrofluoric acid thus far. The first time Walt and Jesse did it, after Walt strangled Krazy-8 way back in the first season, they spent nearly a whole episode weighing their options and ultimately completing their task. At that point, killing and disposing of a human being was still something of a big deal for Walter, and as a result, the viewer. Now, not so much. The guys weren’t so adept at the task back then either, recall Jesse making the mistake of putting aside the plastic bins because he had a perfectly good bathtub. We all know how that ended.

Now, in much the same way the gang (minus Jesse) efficiently and meticulously go about the process of permanent evidence disposal, almost as if it’s routine, we watch them fully expecting and understanding their actions. There is no need for explanation. The fact is at this point, it is routine. That is just what they have to do. They know it, so we know it. They have no qualms with it, so neither do we.

Moving on. When Todd attempts to justify his actions, he says, “It was him or us, and I chose us.” The line was eerily and intentionally reminiscent of what Walt said to justify killing Gale: “When it comes down to you and me versus him… it’s gonna be him.”

Walter, Mike, and Jesse then vote on what to do with Todd. For perhaps the first time ever, Walt and Mike agree on something, and it’s Jesse who’s left out in the cold. It’s decided that the man who will now be forever known as “Ricky Hitler” will be kept close, because they don’t want to pour acid over yet another body nor pay him off and hope he keeps everything to himself. That’s probably a good decision given that when Todd gets in his car, we see he’s held onto a creepy souvenir.

At first, I couldn’t figure out the significance of showing Todd looking at the tarantula in the jar. My first thought was it was meant to show that despite his seemingly nonchalant attitude, Todd really does feel sorry for killing the boy. Perhaps that is part of it, but a show like “Breaking Bad” doesn’t waste a single moment of screen time, and Todd already voiced what I believed to be genuine regret (not necessarily for the murder itself, but for being put in that unfortunate but necessary position). Then it hit me. In a missing person investigation, one of the first things the authorities will do is collect the boy’s prints (likely from his home), so they have something to work with. The old jar o’ spider has the victim’s prints as well as Todd’s, and maybe even another member of the crew as well. That’s my guess anyway. There’s a reason for using a method of complete destruction of any and all evidence. But this time it wasn’t allmthe evidence, and that’s got to have some kind of significance later on.

There is no Walter White. There is only Heisenberg.

This whole season, well, the whole series really, has been about the transformation of “mild-mannered” Walter White into the meth kingpin Heisenberg. This week, we got another piece of a puzzle we didn’t even know we were building, or a glimpse into the psyche of what really drives Walter White.

When Jesse comes to his home, Walter tells him (and us) a bit about his past at Grey Matter. It seems he took a $5000 buyout from the company he named and co-founded, which is now worth “billions, with a b.” Walter now checks Grey Matter’s stock value weekly, still haunted by the decision he made to “sell his childrens’ birthright.”

Part of what made us root for Walter in the beginning was the feeling that despite all the horrible things he was doing, it was for a good cause, or at least out of self-preservation. He was a good man who got a bad rap. Then he got cancer, and as Jesse points out, he wanted to cook meth in order to secure $737,000, which would set up his family for life.

But this new information puts things in a different light and helps explain why Walt tries “so hard to not make five million dollars.” As well his describing that amount as “nothing” and “pennies on the dollar.” And, of course, why he works with an almost animal instinct to burn off his handcuff, steal the methylamine, and calmly tell Mike that everybody can win, you know, with a gun to his head.

At the very least, Heisenberg is no longer working for the well-being of his family, and it puts into question if Walter White ever was. This is a man driven primarily by arrogance and jealousy. Where before he could hide it, it has now consumed every facet of his life. As he tells Jesse at the dinner table, his children are gone and his wife is counting down the days until his cancer returns, “This business is all I have let now. And you want to take it away from me.”

By taking the Grey Matter buyout, Walter gave up the opportunity to prove to the world what he’s known all along: that he’s just plain better than the rest of us. In the pilot, Walt saw the tremendous amount of money to be made by cooking meth during the news report on Hank’s bust. With his introduction to Gus Fring, he saw just how far one can go in the meth business, and learned some lessons about how to get there. There’s no way Walter will take the buyout, to make that same mistake twice. While it seems Mike has forgotten his own advice about “half measures” (how many times has he had a gun to Walt’s head now?), Walt has not. He’s going to make himself forget Grey Matter ever existed. He’s going to make all the money there is to be made. But I believe he has simply come too far. All the money in the world wouldn’t satisfy Heisenberg, and that’s why he’ll go out with the bang that was hinted at in this season’s first scene.

A Few Extra Bits:

I can’t say I’m certain what Walt’s plan is going to be. How can everybody win? He’ll cook by himself and then pay off his partners? But they want their money and they want out. Now. There’s no time for such things. Based on some small hints in this episode, listed below, I’m thinking the plan might have something to do with putting out fake blue meth.

-Over the wire, Mike overhears Hank going about his new responsibilities at the DEA. One of his conversations is about the difference between mayonnaise and its imitation, Miracle Whip.

-The TV report just prior to the one about the boy Todd shot was about a caviar knock-off made of kelp.

-Jesse’s lines about frozen lasagna during the (hilariously uncomfortable) dinner scene. The food never looks like it does on the box. “It’s like yo, whatever happened to truth in advertising?”

One last thing: after that news report, Walt tells Jesse that he’s lost sleep over the boy’s death and tells Jesse to go home, saying he will finish the cook on his own. When Jesse returns downstairs Walt is whistling a startlingly upbeat tune, and you can almost see the gears in Jesse’s head start turning. Walt doesn’t care about the dead child. What else has he lied about? Maybe his mind even goes back to his original (and ultimately correct) suspicions that Walt poisoned Brock. Then there’s the imagery, standing outside of the tent listening to Walt whistle, Jesse is quite literally on the outside looking in.

Watch the cast and crew go inside “Buyout” below and follow the writer on Twitter @NateKreichman.